On cars and vacations and swollen wrists

We rented a car to go on our vacation.  We did last year too.  It's a simple enough compromise that gets me, in the end, some time on the beach.  We usually pay for a mid size car, something that gets good gas mileage and saves us from putting thousands of extra miles on our cars.  As long as it gets me to California, I say whatever.

Well, this year we went to pick up our Chevy Cobalt and left in a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with 23 miles on it.  It was sweet. And we didn't have to pay any more than for the Cobalt.  I resented (a little) the extra gas it took, but driving a car with 23 miles and power everything took away some of my annoyance. I mean, the car told you how many miles until you needed to fill up again. Who knew cars could do that?

Not everything was leather and miles per gallon, though. I did NOT want to have anything happen to this car. I know that they would do a thorough inspection of the car when we returned it and I didn't want to be charged for anything so I prayed extra extra hard that rocks wouldn't chip the windshield or spills stain the upholstery.  It was kind of like driving around in a bubble.  Nothing, not one little thing happened to the car. Everything was just as it was when we picked it up (except it now had 1800 miles, not 23!).

I was glad to drop it off on Saturday in such perfect form.  But, yesterday the bubble that surrounded us popped.

We were driving to my mom's house when a car turned in front of me. I couldn't do anything to avoid hitting him. It was horrible...I still can hear the sound of the impact.  The smell was awful afterwards...both airbags deployed and they smell like burning, so I got my kids out within 2 nanoseconds (or so it felt.)  Our poor little car had to be towed away.  We never made it to my mom's.

The good news is that we all were fine.  My wrist must have gotten hit by the airbag because it swelled up and is nice and bruised now.  My shoulder is killing me and Shane had a tiny scratch on his forehead from...something, but we walked away. 

One of my first thoughts was "I'm glad it wasn't in the rental car."  It would have been that much worse if it had been someone else's car.  But I'm still sad about my little orange car.  It is likely to be totalled...which sucks since we only bought it 2.5 years ago.

But I'm glad that if our bubble had to pop, it only hurt our car. I can replace it.  All day yesterday I kept having horrible visions of what could have happened. Had one of my kids or my husband been carted away to a hospital, I don't know what I would have done with myself. When I think of the traffic maneuvers that brought me to that intersection at that moment, I can't think what I would have done different.  I would have done exactly that 99 times out of 100. It just happened that one time, someone was there who didn't know I was coming.

It all happens so fast.  I'm so glad I'm still here to rent another car next year to take to a warm and sunny beach.  We can make more memories of going on whale cruises

 And hanging out with my husband

 and playing in the sand at the ocean

and eating yummy Mexican food while watching the sun go down

  

and my kids making memories with my niece's kids...

  

another time.  Thank heaven for bubbles, and for the person who controls how and when they pop.